Drones are everywhere — in the news and soon to be (legally) in the skies. They are quickly moving beyond their controversial military use and taking on the role of force multiplier in a myriad of industries including agriculture, inspection services, humanitarian, conservation, and emergency services.
It used to be that tactical use meant rudimentary FMV capabilities. Simply watching the live feed from a SUAS doesn’t fit the mission requirement any more. Analysts are under pressure to deliver richer intelligence from challenging tactical environments, and to do that, they need higher-tech tools.
What was once exclusively the tool of the military is quickly permeating all of US culture. What civilian industry can learn from how the military extracts data from drones.
Everyone takes pictures and video with their devices. Parents record their kids’ soccer games, companies record employee training, police surveillance cameras at busy intersections run 24/7, and drones monitor pipelines in the desert.
Years of video are recorded and uploaded to the cloud each day to sites like YouTube, Vine, and Facebook from devices like mobile phones, personal drones, or home surveillance cameras.
